The Invisible Friend
by euromagpie
Summary: How does Shino stay so cool and collected all the time? Yoga? Six hail marys? Kiba finds out when he stumbles across the Aburame in the midst of his catharsis. Kind of sad, but also kind of fluff? SHINO IS A SAD WHO NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED.


**This idea actually came to me in a dream, because there was way too little of Torune in Naruto, so my dreaming brain decided to make more. I like the idea that Torune was one of the more loose Aburames, and I wish he could have grown up to be Shino's big brother who's there to forcibly remove the stick from his ass when he's being too stiff-necked. Oh well, here, have some trash.**

Kiba scratched his neck as he looked for his friend. Akamaru was still back by the restaurant, head placed on Hinata's lap. He'd been so comfortable that the traitor had refused to come with Kiba when he said he'd go find Shino; they had arranged to get lunch together that day, but Shino was now fifteen minutes late, unusual for their friend. They had even checked all the different partitions between tables in the restaurant – sometimes they could completely overlook the quiet shinobi, and he himself would be too embarrassed at being forgotten to speak up. It had happened before, Kiba was ashamed to admit, but after establishing that Shino really wasn't at the restaurant, he said he'd go looking for him and drag that stuffy nerd to get lunch with his friends.

He knew where Shino would be; any day the shinobi wasn't training with Kiba or Hinata he would be in the woods. He'd confided in Kiba once that his family home was a very severe home, the pressure to conform he'd find himself under would be too much for him and he'd escape into the forest, where there were no ruled and no Aburames creeping around like noise was a crime.

Kiba made quick work of locating his friend – his nose was his best tracking device after all, and Shino had a very distinctive scent of dry grass, sage and autumn evenings. He followed the scent and soon saw the outline of a figure leaning against a tree ahead of him. Just as Kiba was about to pounce on Shino with one of his famous hug attacks that Shino would pretend not to like, he noticed someone else was there. As he approached he could hear Shino's voice talking to the other figure.

"-ther said cousin Muta would be in hospital for another three weeks at least. The whole left side of his chest was flayed through to the other side. I- I went to see him and, and it was like looking at a _corpse_. I've never seen cousin Muta so still. Although they had to shave his head to, to sew up the cut at the back of his head. You would probably feel sorry for him, Torune. I hope he wakes up to feel angry about it though."

Kiba's eyebrow rose, not really at what Shino was saying, but at his friend's voice. It was sad, an emotion he had never heard from Shino before. While he knew his friend had emotions despite everyone being convinced otherwise, he'd never heard them displayed so openly or so deeply as he heard now. He wondered who this Torune was to be entrusted with Shino's emotions.

"-had to remove his kikaichu. There was so much poison in his chakra stream, the kikaichu and shoukaichu were dying by the minute. They only managed to save half the hive. Father's fostering them in a chakra hive while cousin Muta recovers."

Kiba wanted to listen to more of this, to learn more about this side of his friend he'd never seen before, but as he leaned forward to catch more of the conversation, one of his sandals came down on a twig with a sharp crunch. The standing figure snapped its head around to look at Kiba – he only caught sight of a head of messy black hair and a dark mask that obscured all the man's face except his mouth, before the figure wavered, then split into thousands of small black dots.

 _Kikaichu_ , Kiba realised as the swarm settled around Shino, who had got up from where he was leaning against the tree. For a moment they looked at each other in silence.

"He- it- what were you doing?" It wasn't the most tactful question Kiba had ever posed, but he couldn't catch it before it slipped from his lips. He had never done well in quiet situations. It's like the pressure made him say more stupid things than usual.

His friend regarded him coolly from behind his goggles, arms folded.

"I could ask you the same question. Why? Because nobody comes out this close to the Aburame grounds."

"You said you'd come and have lunch with Hinata and Akamaru and me. You didn't turn up and I knew you'd be here, so I came here. But you were talking to, what, your bugs?" Kiba asked defensively. He was still confused about what he'd seen. He knew Shino had a basic telepathic connection with his bugs, he'd seen him give them orders in battle or to spy, but this? The kikaichu had looked human, and apparently that form had a name, too. Torune. Kiba wondered if his teammate had cracked.

Shino grimaced. Kiba knew him well enough to tell his expressions from the wrinkles of his face. The lines around his nose deepened when frowned, and they did so now. Then he did something unexpected.

Shino sighed.

At the exhausted sound, Kiba could do nothing but stare at his friend. It was as if Shino had evolved into an expressive human overnight, although to an outsider he would have looked just as glacial as always. But Kiba had never heard his friend make such a sound before, and it worried him.

"Hey, man, are you okay?" He asked. Kiba remembered what the topic of the conversation between Shino and…his bugs had actually been.

"Is your cousin al-"

"I am not going insane." Shino interrupted him. Kiba raised an eyebrow.

"Sometimes I talk to the bugs when a situation has turned…stressful. Why? Because it brings me…comfort." Where he'd been expressing his worry and sadness about his cousin freely before, Shino now twisted the words around as though they were foreign, as though they pained him to speak them. Kiba knew his friend had issues talking with others about well, most things. Shino wasn't the most social of individuals, and his family's curse of being forgotten easily didn't really help his case much. The years he'd spent along as a child on the playgrounds before Kiba had approached him to fill a spot left in their game had left the Aburame with a severe case of shyness, though Kiba knew he couldn't term it that on pain of death.

"And…Torune?" Kiba asked hesitantly. They were getting somewhere. If Shino was entrusting a secret to him, especially one involving his personal life, he would treat the situation delicately. He knew from experience how quickly his friend could shut down a conversation if it became uncomfortable.

"I- His father was my uncle. Uncle Shikuro died when Torune was young, so father raised him. We were, we were like brothers. He was the one who encouraged me to try to make friends despite the continuous failures on my part." Shino said quietly. And oh, there was the sadness he'd heard earlier. Kiba hadn't known Shino had a brother, or even a cousin that was like a brother.

"He was absorbed into ROOT without warning. We were both very young. He, he went so I didn't have to. Nobody told me so I did not know why he was gone or whether he would come back." Now Kiba could hear the raw edges in Shino's speech, echoes of the hurt and confusion the boy would have felt when his brother disappeared without a reason. The affection must have run deep for him to still hold onto Torune for so long.

Shino shrugged, face obviously uncomfortable at the subject.

"Sometimes I talk to Torune. Why? If I find no release for illogical emotions, they can impact the control of my kikaichu. An uncontrolled Aburame is a dangerous Aburame." He summed up, his voice empty again, signalling this part of the conversation was over.

Kiba realised what he'd seen, now. Shino's cousin had come back in critical condition. From what he'd said, Shino had been deeply affected. As an Aburame, he wouldn't be able confide in any family member, and he most likely felt too ashamed to talk to his friends about it. So he'd summon his kikaichu into an insect clone of his brother who was apparently the one family member he'd felt comfortable telling about his feelings. This Torune must have been a pretty unusual Aburame, from his encouraging Shino to make friends, which the insect clan usually saw as an unnecessary social activity. Shino would talk to the bug-Torune, as a sort of catharsis. This way he could talk to someone he felt comfortable around, while also ensuring his emotional vulnerability wouldn't leak to anyone, at the same time as ensuring the control he had over the kikaichu remained intact.

It was sort of sad, even if it did make a lot of sense.

Kiba shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"…Soooo, your cousin?" Shino stiffened, head dipping. Obviously he hadn't quite talked about it enough.

"Ambushed. His whole cell was wiped out. He survived. How? He sacrificed nearly a third of his hive to stopper up his chest so he could make it back to Konoha without bleeding out."

"Will he survive?"

Shino shrugged.

"If he survives the next few days. The doctors are unsure."

Kiba nearly asked if this Muta and Shino were close, but even he realised that was incredibly insensitive. Shino lacked siblings or a mother, so his father and his two cousins were the only family he interacted with on a regular basis. Now he thought about it, Kiba could remember a couple of times when Shino had mentioned the name, although he'd never really paid it much attention before. Either way, his cousin was family; of course Shino would be tense that he might die any day.

He cast about for something to say, but for once Shino beat him to the punch.

"Is Hinata not waiting?" He asked, gesturing for Kiba to lead the way back. Kiba looked at his friend, frowning.

He wasn't sure how to feel about this situation. On the one hand, he knew that Shino was, well, he was just wired a bit differently to most people. What would seem weird and even unhealthy to Kiba might be just what Shino needed to stay sane. If he interfered, he might even make the situation worse. On the other hand, his _friend_ didn't feel comfortable enough around his own teammates that he hid out in the woods to talk to his insects in the shape of his long gone brother to purge his emotions to avoid his kikaichu running wild. _I mean, there aren't many ways that_ _ **can't**_ _be unhealthy, right?_ Kiba thought to himself.

On the third hand that he didn't have, now might not be the best moment to sort out this situation. He might not look like it, but the conversation they just had showed that Shino was more disturbed by Muta's situation than he would willingly admit. Kiba hated to apply the label to his friend, but he was _delicate_ at the moment, and Kiba didn't trust Shino to tell him if he went too far.

That settles that.

"Yeah, c'mon, she's probably convinced Akamaru to elope with her at this point. I swear she must be part Inuzuka sometimes." Kiba muttered, stomping through the thick undergrowth as he lead the way back in the direction of the city centre and the restaurant their teammates were waiting at. He heard the near silent sound of Shino following him.

He'd let the matter rest for now. Unlike what most people thought, Kiba did know how to be patient. He could wait to see how Shino's cousin's situation played out first. Give it a week, and then-

Then Kiba was going to have _words_ with Shino.


End file.
